


A Moment of Weakness

by catawhumpus (ironmermaidens)



Series: Crown AU [2]
Category: Hermitcraft
Genre: Cages, Collars, Conditioning, Dehumanization, Gen, M/M, Master/Pet Dynamics, Threat of Strangulation, Threat of burning, Whumptober 2020, hc crown au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironmermaidens/pseuds/catawhumpus
Summary: In the middle of the night, alone with his thoughts and the sins he carries with him, King Wels experiences a moment of weakness.
Series: Crown AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2000731
Comments: 1
Kudos: 25
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	A Moment of Weakness

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whumptober 2020 No.4: Caged.

Moonlight from the open curtains casts a cold light across Wels’s face, and he finds himself restless in its chill. The embers from the fireplace fight weakly against it. Too weak. Wels throws the duvet off himself, ignores the quiet snort from Python as he stands, and takes careful steps across the room to the fireplace. The rug keeps the soles of his feet warm. He shivers anyway.

The fire iron slides from its place on its stand with a soft metallic scrape. He hears another stirring behind him, and this time his shoulders tense. It doesn’t come from the bed he’s just abandoned. It comes from the corner, from behind the bars of a cage made for a hound. It’s not a hound that occupies it.

Wels pokes at the embers viciously, turns a stub of a log over with a shower of sparks that don’t catch. He stabs at the log again and it splits in half. Ash snuffs half the embers out.

He takes a deep breath, let’s it out slowly through his nose and this time his shaking hand pushes the iron through the remaining embers more slowly, more controlled, letting them flare to life until a hunk of the split log catches. He watched the little flame dance along peeling bark, spreading until suddenly the entire log is its ballroom. He replaces the fire iron in its stand, and reluctantly turns to the cage in the corner, and to his pet who occupies it.

His Consort lay curled in a ball in a nest of pillows, buried in a tangle of blankets, all of them fit for royalty at one point or another. All of them too worn for the King or Queen or their children any longer. He recognizes the one over his Consort’s shoulders as Rosemary’s baby blanket. She’d cried so hard when she discovered it’d been replaced. He smiles at the memory of her sneaking into his bedchambers to steal it back. His Consort was fond of his children. He would have been all too willing to allow Rosemary every pillow and blanket in his cage if it made her happy. She, in turn, was all too willing to leave her prize behind, as long as it was the Consort she left it behind with. 

He frowns then as his gaze traces a path from the Consort’s shoulders down his back. He was a restless sleeper, and tonight was no different. Along with the blankets, his night shirt had become twisted, his midriff bared, his back exposed. The moonlight is too dim to see the scars he knows are there. Wels swallows and turns back to the fire. The dance of the flames had died down while he wasn’t looking. A new dance floor seemed in order. Wels picks a log from the pile nearby and tosses it into the ash pile, and cringes as he hears his Consort shifting once more. He feels ill as he pictures his Consort curled into a little ball inside a cage too small for a grown man. No matter how tightly he curled in on himself, there would never be enough room.

He doesn’t understand why it bothers him, sometimes. Not all the time. Often enough to make his nights sleepless. Too many nights did he lay awake, watching his Consort in the scant light and silently begging him for forgiveness for the way he’s been treated. It never lasts through the morning. When he’s dressed and his crown is replaced on his head it comes along with the cruel urge to force his Consort to his knees, to slap him until his cheek is red, his mouth dripping with blood and unearned apologies, pleading for his King’s mercy until Wels is swimming in the heady feeling of power. Every fantasy he has about breaking what little will his Consort had remaining runs through his mind and fuels his guilty conscious the next night the same way a fresh log fuels the fire in his hearth. 

It gnaws at him like an insatiable hunger, and finally he turns from the fire and back towards his Consort. He pads across the carpet to the cage and kneels, carelessly pulling the door open and grabbing his Consort by the arm. The Consort snaps awake, and the groggy confusion Wels sees in his eyes behind his curtain of hair stabs at him. 

“My King...?” The Consort says, a sleepy slur to his words that was so painfully, enduringly innocent. He remembers a Consort that would glare when awoken, spit his words venomously. He would pull himself out of Wels’s grasp and press his back into the far end of the cage, snarling like a cornered animal. He wouldn’t allow his King to hold his wrist with submissive deferment. Wels feels a hysterical urge to shake his Consort, beg him to fight back, but he swallows it down. He knows this Consort would only feel frightened if he did.

“Come with me, Consort,” he says instead, and pulls the Consort from his cage, biting his tongue at the way he allows Wels to guide him to his feet.

“My King?" The Consort asks again, but Wels shushes him. He takes the Consort by the hand, another gentle on his elbow, and escorts him to the bed. His Consort gives him another confused look.

"Get in," Wels says, and the Consort obeys, crawling into the space beside Python in the middle of the mattress. Wels climbs in beside him. He hates the warmth his Consort watches him with, as if Wels were some hero for rescuing him from the prison he'd put him in. He brushes his Consort's hair behind his ear, his fingers tracing down his jaw. The Consort's eyes flutter shut with a content sigh. He feels nauseous at the way the Consort bares his neck for Wels. He could wrap his fingers around his throat and squeeze the life from him. He could bring his fingers to the clasp of his collar and undo it. He could throw the damn thing into the fire and tell his Consort to run. He could throw his Consort into the fire, too.

Wels pulls the covers over them both, his stomach churning as his Consort presses close against his chest. 

"Sleep well, my Prince," he whispers.

"Yes, my King," the Consort whispers back. 

In the morning, Wels dresses and replaces the crown upon his head.


End file.
